I have a pair of colteer .22 rifles. one is lr. one is mag...The mag. has a 22" barrel, chrome bolt, and brighter blue than the lr. . the barrel inscription is smaller on the magnum. The lr.has a 24" barrel, plain bolt and a much larger barrel markings. they both look 100% orig. the mag. looks new. question is why does the mag have a shorter barrel and different markings..maybe year made , or, caliber? they were made 1957-66. maybe one is a newer version? any Colt rifle guys out there?? thanks. Just wondering.

The Colteer rifles were made outside of the Colt factory (farmed out).
A small company named Jefferson Mfg made them first. Then Jefferson sold out it's name and factory to an outfit named Kodiak Arms.
Kodiak continued to make the Colteer's and Stagecoach .22's for Colt. Kodiak also made the same guns with their own Kodiak name and Kodiak Model numbers.

Jefferson & Kodiak were both in the North Haven / New Haven CT area.

With the outsourcing of the guns to begin with and then the turn over of the two different mfg's, quite a few small changes in characteristics are noted on these.
Add to that just the differences normally given to one Model/Caliber over another and you have quite a few different versions. Some on purpose, others just as a result of changes in manufacturing and manufacturers.

Colt seemed to license out to unknown and low end manufacturers surely for a high profit margin. Collector appeal was not considered. I would never buy a Colt that was not a real Colt.

Hey 2152hg thanks for the wisdom in your answer! Colt must have liked this fun shootin', squirrel killin' little piece also!

I think the semi auto Colt 22rf rifles were made by a French Co.
Manufrance. They may have been sub contracted by the outfit
that made the bolt actions because they too were sold under
same labels as the BAs.

I wasn't aware of Jefferson or Kodiak. If you have a Numerich
catalog look in cross reference , you may be able to do it on
line. I took these names to be store brand labels for Manufrance
products. They also made a pump shotgun that was sold under
Colt, Marlin, H&R label as well as house brands.

The 22 semi--autos were made by Jefferson Mfg and then later Kodiak Arms.
Kodiak's factory was located in North Haven on Montowese Ave.
(I had to look that one up just for my own info!)

It was not that far away (north) from where the present Mossberg Factory is located on Grosso Ave which in turn is north of where the MArlin North Haven plant was.
I worked at the latter two in the 70's,, Pedersen Custom had their shop behind the Mossberg plant.

Kodiak was long gone by then of course. At the time Kodiak was in biz in North HAven,, both Marlin and Mossberg still had their orig factorys chugging along in the city of New Haven along with Winchester.

Kodiak made a centerfire sporting rifle on a 98 Mauser action also. Several different versions and calibers. Most everyone did at the time so it wasn't anything out of this world new.
They did market a pump 12ga shotgun but I think that was the French import (Lasalle?) and several others imported and sold the same shotgun as well,,including Colt.
MAny souces list the shotgun as 'mfg'd' by Kodiak,,though I think I was the French import instead. Model 458 was the model.

Before Kodiak,,there was Jefferson Mfg. That too was an actual plant or factory how ever small compared to todays digs.

When Colt renamed it's line of boltaction centerfire rifles from the '57' to the 'Coltsman' series (1958/early 59), they jobbed out the entire build to ...Jefferson Mfg Co.
Orig biz address of New Haven Ct,,later address of North HAven Ct (Montowese Ave?? I don't know),,.

Jefferson built (put together) the entire rifles for Colt on bbl'd actions supplied to Colt by Firearms International.
Both Mauser 98 and Sako Medium length actions were used depending on caliber (sako for the shorter cartridges like 308)
The pre-turned stocks were fitted (Wysoski Bros(?,,I think they were around in the 50's),
Checkering done probably by another outside freelanse vendor, I believe it may have been a husband & wife team I had the pleasure of knowing while working at Pedersen.
The project didn't last more than a year+. The market was stuffed with 98MAuser commercial rifles and not everyone wanted to pay a premium for the Colt bbl address.
Sporterizing WW2 rifles was in it's hey-day and rifles to work on could be bought for $10 even if you just wanted to leave them as-is. Not many made it through the times untouched though!

The 'Coltsman' line was a slow mover and Jefferson Mfg wasn't doing well. It was sold off to Kodiak Arms after that Coltsman run of rifles in 1959/60.

Kodiak started mfg it's own Mauser 98 sporter (again) and (imported I believe) that 12ga pump).
The 22 semi auto contract from Colt kept them busy and they marketed the same rifles with a few small changes under their own name and model numbers.
The 22WMR semiauto was the first one of it's kind as far as I know. I don't know who designed it

Kodiak may have also been involved as a middle man in the 1963 to '65 revival of the 'Coltsman' rifles. I'm not exactly sure what happened here.
What I'm pretty sure about is that only SAKO actions were used,,no Mauser 98.
Two grades, standard and Deluxe and the rifles were simply identicle to the SAKO standard and deluxe grades from Finland.
Supposedly the entire rifle(s) was mfg in Finland at Sako, the only difference being the Colt bbl address markings.
The guns were sort of special order in that way I'd imagine as Colt did not stock many but instead waited for orders for one.

How or why Kodiak Arms would have to be involved in this operation as a middle man if it was simply an order, then import the rifle for the customer,,I don't quite understand. Colt could certainly do that.
But I've been told and have seen it in print that Kodiak was involved in this SAKO only Coltsman rifle build for Colt,,but the rifles were entirely built and marked in Finland and then imported. (So why the need for Kodiak would be my question). Maybe I'm just missing something that's lookin' right at me.

Anyway, The Colt semiauto 22's in several Colt Model names were made and sold out of NorthHaven. As well as a Kodiak put together Mauser 98 Sporter w/Kodiaks name on it.
The pump shotgun they marketed I do believe was the French LaSalle/ManuFrance import.

Confusing little bunch. To add a little more, when I worked at Marlin I can remember a few older workers commenting on them (Marlin) having made (22cal) bbls for Jefferson.
That would make sense. A small little factory wouldn't have the capacity to make bbls at least not in quantity.
MArlin was not shy about wanting to keep it's machines busy. Especially 22rf rifle bbl mfg'g,,that pretty much ran itself w/but a few workers to oversee it. A good profit maker.
Marlin did originally make the bbls for Ruger when they first started out too.

End of the morning wandering

Thanks for the informative posts. More of this outside manufacture than I ever thought of.